Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the second quarter 2010 Acadia Realty Trust earnings conference call. My name is Alicia, and I’ll be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We’ll facilitate the question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. (Operator Instructions)

Please be aware that statements made during the call that are not historical may be deemed forward looking statements within the meaning of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated by such forward looking statements. Due to the variety of risks and uncertainties which are disclosed in the company's most recent Form 10-K and other periodic filings with the SEC. Forward looking statements speak only as of the date of this call and the company undertakes no duty to update them.

During this call management may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures including funds from operations and net operating income. Please see Acadia's earnings press release posted on the website for reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures with the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures.

Participating in today's call will be Kenneth Bernstein, President and Chief Executive Officer; Michael Nelsen, Chief Financial Officer; and Jon Grisham, Chief Accounting Officer. Following management discussion, there will be an opportunity for all participants to ask questions.

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Bernstein, please proceed, sir.

Kenneth Bernstein

Thank you. Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. Today I’ll start with a brief overview of the progress we made in the second quarter and the trends we are seeing. Then Jon Grisham will review our earnings, operating metrics and key drivers. And finally, Mike Nelson, Jon and I will take questions.

As an overview, we’ve spent time reviewing our second quarter results in the context of the improvements in the economy and financial markets over the past year, but also in light of the more recent mixed macroeconomic data on housing, employment, consumer spinning and the resulting market volatility.

As we said in our last quarterly call, while we’ve been experiencing a strengthening or recovery in most aspects of the business, we also felt that it was prudent to be prepared for a bumpy road ahead before we entered into a full blown recovery.

Now, halfway through the year, we’re seeing a continued year-over-year strengthening or stabilization of the key drivers of our business. In many instances in excess of our original forecasts but our economy has certainly also experienced its fair share of recent turbulence.

So today we’ll discuss what we’re seeing in key components of our business. First our core portfolio, secondly, our balance sheet and third, finally, our external growth platform. And when we compare and contrast this performance with the headline data, what we’re seeing so far is that the volatility associated with macroeconomic reports is not translating into new operational softening.

Now, we recognize that most of our internal information is more often than not a lagging, not a leading indicator and it’s heavily anecdotal, so some level of caution appropriate. And probably most importantly, our view is however bumpy this recovery may remain to be, we believe we’re well positioned both in terms of our existing portfolio, our balance sheet and our external investment platform.

So, first, in terms of our portfolio performance in the second quarter our same store performance for the quarter and year-to-date were stronger than we had originally forecasted. This is primarily due to fact that our team was able to retain a higher percentage of tenants with lower default rates than was originally anticipated.

As we previously discussed our same store NOI declined was concentrated in our two previously discussed vacancies of Absecon, New Jersey and Chestnut Hill, and excluding them, the portfolio would have produced otherwise positive results more or less across the board.

Furthermore in the second quarter, we also saw continued stability and consistency in the performance metrics of our existing tenants both in terms of defaults, evictions, bankruptcies and collections and our more anecdotal conversations and negotiations with our retailers seems to be consistent with a stabilizing economic outlook.

So, in short, as opposed to our original year-end more conservative expectations, we see the impact of the recession on occupancy declines having been shallower and in shorter duration than we originally anticipated.

Furthermore, we’re beginning to once again see opportunities to harvest value within our portfolio by recapturing space from underperforming tenants and then releasing that space for positive spreads. In the second quarter our leasing team successfully negotiating the recapture of co-anchor in our New Loudon shopping center.

This was a 65,000 square foot on time department store box. It was terminated and taken back, and simultaneously, we entered into two leases, one to expand our existing and thriving price chopper supermarket bringing that tenant to 88,000 square feet, and the balance going to Hobby Lobby.

Now, due to Acadia's somewhat unique loss small numbers as Jon will discuss, is the, there will be a short-term negative impact on occupancy and NOI while this re-tenanting takes place. However, upon the two tenants opening, which will be in the middle of next year, this transaction will be meaningfully accretive.